The Mission

Charles W. Hawthorne

American Art

In this striking image of a mission church that Charles Hawthorne encountered on a trip to Texas and Mexico in 1928, he used watery washes to suggest a scene bathed in brilliant southwestern light. The vivid tonalities and rapid touch of Hawthorne’s mature work in watercolor (largely from the 1920s) stand in stark contrast to the oil paintings for which he was better known—figure subjects that tended to be dark and heavily brushed. He may have found inspiration for this more liberated expression in the freely brushed and vibrant watercolors of John Singer Sargent.

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